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Google has announced that it will make it possible to have the location history and the web and app activities of users automatically removed to a certain time limit. This data could also be deleted earlier, but users had to do this manually.

By studying the location history and the web and app activities, Google claims to be able to make its products more useful to users. The data is used, for example, to recommend nearby restaurants, or to remember a previous search. These settings can be turned on and off by users, and data can be manually deleted.

However, Google claims to have received feedback from its users asking for simpler ways to manage or delete the data. This converted the company into the option to have the data automatically deleted after a certain period of time.

Users can use their Google Account to indicate whether data should be deleted after three or eighteen months. Data older than that period is then automatically deleted, also in the future. The position will be rolled out in the coming weeks.

Two-step verification

Earlier this week it also became clear that Google now offers the possibility to use smartphones with Android 7.0 or higher for two-step verification. This should improve the security of the Internet giant’s online services.

By using smartphones as a two-step verification, consumers and businesses should be helped to avoid a number of phishing risks and other ways of stealing passwords and usernames. In Google’s approach, something that an end user already knows is combined with something that he or she physically possesses.

After enabling the service, it is easy to find out whether an email, SMS or anything else redirects a user to a false version of a Google online service. In this case, the user does not have to use a two-step verification key, which indicates a false variant of the service in question.

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.